There’s No Pockets In A Shroud

by Les May

WHEN Theresa May called a General Election in 2017 one proposal in the Tory Manifesto was immediately dubbed a ‘Dementia Tax’.   At present councils pay for all or part of a person’s social care if they have less than £23,250 in capital. This applies if a person is in a residential home or nursing home. The cost is then recouped from their estate after their death.  May also wanted to recover from their estate the costs of care given to people in their own home, to raise the protected sum to £100,000 and axe the Winter Fuel Allowance for more affluent pensioners.

These proposals went down like the proverbial ‘lead balloon’.  They were attacked by both Labour and the Liberal Democrats.  The Tories could reasonably argue that this was a better deal for relatively poorer people who needed residential care and would mean that the costs of care given in the home would be recouped only from the more wealthy.  Strictly speaking of course that’s not quite true.  Until someone finds a foolproof, (and fire proof?) way of putting ‘pockets in a shroud’ it will be the beneficiaries of the estate who will have their inheritance reduced.

Social care today is in the same state as health care was in the 1930s, a hodgepodge of partly national and partly local provision, and funded partly by those who have the misfortune to need long term care, often with pressure applied to their spouse or family, and partly from the public purse.   Unlike the NHS which is ‘free at the point of delivery’ social care is not built around a ‘shared risk model’.

Such a model would recognise that throughout our life we all run a small risk of requiring social and residential care due to age, infirmity or accident, hence we should all make a contribution to funding that care for those who need it.

The simplest and most effective way of doing this is via the tax system.  But here we have a choice we can either raise the money through a tax on income or through a tax on wealth, specifically a tax on inherited wealth.  When the costs of care are recouped after someone’s death the burden falls on the estate not the deceased individual.   If you doubt this you might like to consider that a dead person does not own their own body, so how can they be said to own property or other assets?

Switching to such a funding model would go much further than Labour’s 2010 proposal for a ‘National Care Service’.  Labour shied away from a fully tax funded system as being too costly to be a sustainable model on the basis that it would put too high a financial burden on the decreasing proportion of the population that is of working age (p126 below).  I fail to see that a tax based upon inherited wealth would not be sustainable.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/238441/7854.pdf

The distinction between social (or personal) care and medically required care is an artificial one.  Dementia is a chronic medical condition; it results in sufferers requiring social care in their own home.  Why should the necessary care for both the condition and its side effects not come from the same source?

May’s ‘crime’ was to try to have an adult conversation with people who prefer not to think about the problem of funding care for older people and send to parliament people who are similarly reluctant to talk about it.  In 2019 the lesson was learned, no one wanted a caning for talking out of turn.  The Tories pledged an extra £1bn, the Lib Dems £3bn and Labour £10bn by 2024 to fund in home social care for all who needed it and to ensure that carers were paid at least £10 an hour with no ‘zero hours contracts’.

These are significant sums of money, but even Labour’s proposals leave the question of funding residential care for those who need it unresolved.  This matters because the available funding has an impact on the quality of care which is provided.   Nothing illustrates this more sharply than the spectacle of the owners of ‘run for profit’ residential homes asking to be provided with kit to protect staff and residents against coronavirus, and being told it is their responsibility.

We need a politician with vision and determination to keep fighting for a universal and comprehensive care model for those who need it due to age or a chronic medical condition funded by a tax on inherited wealth, in the face of short sighted claims that it is a ‘death tax’ or a ‘tax on the sick’.  As I said earlier, ‘there’s no pockets in a shroud’.  Even though I am unlikely to be the recipient of inherited wealth it seems to me it would be better to have the certainty 80% of something rather than run the risk of 100% of nothing!

http://www.renewal.org.uk/articles/death-and-taxes

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2017/03/death-tax-social-care

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Brexit, the most pointless, masochistic ambition in our history

by

Ian McEwan

IT’s done.  A triumph of dogged negotiation by May then, briefly, Johnson, has fulfilled the most pointless, masochistic ambition ever dreamed of in the history of these islands.  The rest of the world, presidents Putin and Trump excepted, have watched on in astonishment and dismay.  A majority voted in December for parties which supported a second referendum.  But those parties failed lamentably to make common cause.  We must pack up our tents, perhaps to the sound of church bells, and hope to begin the 15-year trudge, back towards some semblance of where we were yesterday with our multiple trade deals, security, health and scientific co-operation and a thousand other useful arrangements.

The only certainty is that we’ll be asking ourselves questions for a very long time. Set aside for a moment Vote Leave’s lies, dodgy funding, Russian involvement or the toothless Electoral Commission. Consider instead the magic dust. How did a matter of such momentous constitutional, economic and cultural consequence come to be settled by a first-past-the-post vote and not by a super-majority? A parliamentary paper (see Briefing 07212) at the time of the 2015 Referendum Act hinted at the reason: because the referendum was merely advisory. It “enables the electorate to voice an opinion”. How did “advisory” morph into “binding”? By that blinding dust thrown in our eyes from right and left by populist hands.

READ MORE

A Rotten Regime and 'Ramsay MacCorbyn'

by Brian Bamford

TODAY's editorial leader in the Financial Times is entitled 'Something is rotten in Britain's political system'. 

The editorial claims:  'Discipline over Brexit in both main parties has broken down.  So, too, has collective responsibility in government.  Leaks from cabinet meetings have become routine; the chief whip calls this cabinet the worst-disciplined in British political history.  The case of Garvin Williamson, however will live in infamy.'

It seems that the defence secretary and leak's merchant, Mr. Williamson, 'was busy manoeuvring to succeed Mrs May'.  At the same time he is not on his own, and civil servants are now complaining about how many of the cabinet are mounting their own campaigns.  The FT says:  'It is a profound indictment of the political class that so many ministers now appear more interested in plotting to become prime minister than doing their jobs.'

The Tory party has lost over a thousand seats in the local government elections, but the poor performance of the Labour party that had hoped to benefit from public disquiet with the tories over Brexit is also significant. 

The danger is that based on these election results, both Mrs. May and Jeremy Corbyn may this week be temped to cobble together  a cross-party deal on Brexit, in order  to improve their standing with the electorate.

It has been suggested that Labour Remainers are anxious that Mr. Corbyn may be about to do a deal with the Tories.  One senior Labour Remainer asked:  'Does he really want to be Ramsay McCorbyn?'

That was an allusion to the notorious Labour leader, Ramsay MacDonald, who has been viewed as a traitor for forming a national government in the 1930s.

The Eurosceptic Tory MP, Jacob Rees-Mogg labelled this sucking-up approach as  'conlaberating'.

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When Brexit Really Does Mean Brexit

by Les May

IT is well known that Donald Trump offered Theresa May advice about how to handle Brexit. What has been a mystery until now has been what he actually said in the private discussions.

Thanks to a recent intercept made today 31 March between 01.00 GMT and 02.00 BST by the Australian administered repeater station where the Tera-bit Trans-Pacific Optical Fibre Link (TTPOFL) comes ashore on the island of Rabaul, we now know much more about what Trump had to say when she told him ‘Brexit means Brexit’.

After his success in the November 2016 presidential election his shadow administration had set up a small group charged with coming up with policies which would bring about a seismic shift in geopolitical alignments and in so doing promote his America First policy.

This group contacted two Southern Baptist University engineers, Professor Sellers Strange and Dr Peter Lurve, who in 2001 had written a paper published in the Journal of Terraforming advocating nuclear mining. They proposed that Great Britain should detach itself physically from the continental shelf and set itself adrift from the European tectonic plate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming

This would have required the drilling of several hundred holes deep enough to reach the Mohorovic Discontinuity, lowering into each one a low yield nuclear bomb and triggering these simultaneously. The shock wave would shatter the rock and Great Britain really would be free from Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mohole

Trump put this proposal to Theresa May and offered the use of the newly commissioned Glomar Explorer to undertake the drilling. (The original Explorer had been used to recover part of a Soviet submarine K-129 in 1974 and was scrapped in 2015). He also agreed to supply up to 970 low yield nuclear devices. These had originally been designed in the 1950s and 60s as battlefield or tactical weapons to be used to halt Russian tanks crossing the German Plain en masse if the Cold War suddenly turned hot, but were now redundant and unstable. It was also a convenient way of disposing of fissile material away from US soil in line with Trump’s America First policies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian

Initially the Cabinet was sceptical and dismissed it as just another of Trump’s daft ideas. But according to a Japanese website it gained traction after May’s disastrous election gamble in 2017 when she found herself having to bribe the DUP for their support. Seemingly Arlene Foster’s intransigence caused May to lose patience and she proposed that Strange and Lurve’s original scheme be modified so that only England, Wales plus the Scottish mainland and nearer islands be detached. Ulster would be left to negotiate with the Irish republic and Shetland would be ceded to its original owners in Oslo having. This became known as the Norway Option.

If you’ve been to the seaside recently and spotted a large vessel with what looks like a pylon on top of it a long way offshore it may have been the Glomar Explorer.

For more details of May’s reworked proposal excluding Northern Ireland and Shetland see www.fukulott.jp and the links therein.

I’d like to thank MIT educated engineer Howard Wolowitz M. Eng. for his help with this piece.

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BREXIT CONSIDERED by Vernon Bogdanor

ON June 23, 2016, British voters decided by a margin of 52 percent to 48 percent that the United Kingdom should leave the European Union.  Since then, British politics has been convulsed by the referendum’s repercussions. Some Remainers do not accept the finality of the vote.  The margin, they argue, was too narrow to provide a mandate for fundamental change, while some of the arguments that persuaded voters to support Leave were mendacious.  The hope that Britain could, in the words of then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, have its cake and eat it has proved misplaced.

The hope that Britain could, in the words of then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, have its cake and eat it has proved misplaced.

If, to alter the metaphor, one leaves a tennis club because one does not wish to pay the subscription and does not like the rules, one will not be able to continue to use the tennis courts on the same basis as the members. Therefore, some Remainers conclude, there should be a second referendum, to discover whether the British people still wish to leave the European Union.

The European issue is difficult for Parliament to resolve for two reasons. The first is that May’s government holds only a minority of seats—317 out of the 650—in the House of Commons, meaning it must rely for its narrow majority on the 10 members of parliament from the vehemently pro-Brexit Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland. But, perhaps even more important, both the Conservatives and the opposition Labour Party are internally divided between Remainers and Brexiteers. That division reflects a geographical and cultural division in the country.

The large cities, together with Scotland and Northern Ireland, welcome globalization and are relaxed about the EU’s principle of freedom of movement. They voted to remain. But smaller towns and older manufacturing areas, in which many feel left behind, are hostile to globalization and freedom of movement, which, they argue, have kept wages down and put undue pressure on public services. These areas supported the Leave campaign.

Parliament has enacted that Britain will leave the EU on March 29. After long and tortuous negotiations, Prime Minister Theresa May in November 2018 secured a deal with the EU. That deal comprises a legally binding withdrawal agreement providing for a transition period until December 2020, during which Britain will remain bound by EU rules while negotiating the final relationship. The pattern of that relationship is outlined in a nonbinding political declaration that hints at an outcome in which Britain could negotiate independent trade agreements, while also providing it with some degree of frictionless trade with the EU.

May’s cabinet, despite internal tensions between Remainers and Brexiteers, accepted the deal. But the Tories’ DUP allies were fiercely opposed to it, as they claimed that it might separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom by preventing a hard border with the Irish Republic and potentially creating a customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. The deal was also opposed both by Brexiteers in the Conservative Party, who claimed that it tied Britain too closely to the EU, and by Remainers—primarily Labour, but also Liberal Democrats and Scottish Nationalists—who argued that it allowed for too many barriers to the export of goods and services to the EU. This coalition of incompatibles imposed a crushing defeat on the government motion to accept the deal on Jan. 15. Just 202 MPs supported it, while 432 rejected it.

A defeat of this magnitude is unparalleled in Britain’s parliamentary history. No fewer than 118 Conservatives, mostly hard Brexiteers, voted against the deal, with just 196 Conservatives supporting it. And many of those who voted for it had no choice.  (Because approximately 100 Conservative MPs are ministers or on the government payroll, they were duty-bound to support May or resign.  This means that a majority of Conservative backbenchers were opposed to the deal.) May’s defeat, in what was arguably the most important parliamentary vote in Britain since World War II, creates a moment of acute danger for the prime minister, the government, the Conservative Party, and the country.

A harder Brexit to placate Conservative rebels would alienate Conservative Remainers. Conversely, a softer Brexit to win support from the opposition parties would increase the number of Conservative rebels.

The hope was that the deal could unite Brexiteers and Remainers. Instead it has driven them further apart. A harder Brexit to placate Conservative rebels would alienate Conservative Remainers. Conversely, a softer Brexit to win support from the opposition parties would increase the number of Conservative rebels. Indeed, there may be no deal that could hold the Conservative Party together; an alternative could end the cabinet truce and possibly lead to the disintegration of the minority government, with a general election to follow.

It has happened before. In 1979, the Labour minority government led by James Callaghan disintegrated in this way, in part because Labour was internally divided on the issue of devolving power to Scotland. Then, in 1951, Clement Attlee’s Labour government, which enjoyed a majority of only five, disintegrated because the party was internally divided between left and right. In both cases, long periods in the opposition followed.

The vote also creates a moment of danger for the country. Since Parliament has already approved a bill stating Brexit will occur on March 29, that is the default position. The exit date can, admittedly, be extended with the agreement of the other 27 members of the European Union. But those countries may be unwilling to agree if the only reason for extension is that MPs, 30 months after the referendum, still cannot make up their minds. In any case, an extension would only postpone the dilemma. It would not resolve it.

Unless Parliament passes new legislation—and there are now fewer than 40 sitting days before March 29—Britain will leave the EU without a deal.  That is regarded by most commentators as disastrous, since it would mean that EU customs duties and, even more disadvantageously, an intimidating host of EU regulations would be imposed on British exports.  It would no longer be as easy to send goods from London to Paris or Frankfurt as it is to send goods from London to Edinburgh.

The Jan. 15 vote showed what MPs are against. But there seems to be little agreement on what they are for. Theresa May is now seeking consensus through all-party talks, although she has not yet budged on her so-called red lines, namely that Britain should leave both the European customs union (in order to pursue an independent trade policy) and the single market (to avoid allowing free movement of people and the jurisdiction of EU courts).   And the opposition parties see no reason to help her. Labour is unwilling to allow its deep internal divisions to be publicly exposed by articulating a clear alternative policy. It seeks not consensus but a general election to remove the Conservatives from power.   The Liberal Democrats seek a second referendum, while the Scottish nationalists seek to exploit the government’s difficulties to further the case for independence.
There is no obvious resolution of the problem that could secure majority support.

There is no obvious resolution of the problem that could secure majority support.  Were Britain to remain in the EU’s customs union, it would be unable to sign independent trade agreements.  Were it to remain in the EU’s internal market, it would have to accept freedom of movement.  Yet control of immigration from the European Union was one of the main motivations behind the Brexit vote.
At this point, there seem to be just three alternatives. The first is May’s deal, perhaps in a slightly modified form.  The second is for Britain to leave the EU without a deal; even though most MPs are against a no-deal Brexit, they find themselves unable to agree on an alternative.  The third is for Parliament throw the issue back to the people in a second referendum, even though the prime minister has so far opposed such a move, and its advocates cannot agree on the question to be asked.  Finally, given that the country remains almost evenly divided, a second referendum would not necessarily resolve the conflict.

The issue of Britain’s place in (or out of) Europe has arguably destroyed five of the last six Conservative prime ministers—Harold Macmillan, Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, and David Cameron.  It may be about to bring down another.

Vernon Bogdanor is a professor of government at King’s College, London. His book Brexit and the Constitution will be published next year. In 2019, he will be giving the Stimson lecture at Yale University on the consequences of Brexit for Britain and the European Union.

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BREXIT – Another Anarchist’s Guide

                                                                      by Green Swiper

ANARCHISTS come in all shapes and sizes.   I for one salute Chris Draper for posting our alternative view.

I agree with everything in his section one: 'The EU is a bad thing'.  That title is correct but Chris is pulling his punches.  Free Movement just allows Big Business to use foreign-scab-labour.  Those scabs drive down wages and push up prices.  Anybody who objects gets called a racist.  That’s a neat trick: good old capitalism!  Send them all back: the dirty scabs. That’s what I say.

I agree with everything in Chris’ section two:  'BREXIT or BETRAYAL?'.   The answer is BETRAYAL!  A better title for this section might have been: 'BREXIT or BULLSHIT?'  Chris makes many pertinent points here.  Theresa May has spent over two years dragging her feet. She has pretended to be incompetent while her state sponsored broadcaster, the BBC, has slavishly relayed her laid down message:  'You idiot plebs have made a big mistake because you didn’t know what you were doing'.  We should reply to this by sending the police around to number ten to arrest May for treason. We haven’t been able to hang traitors since the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998 so we’ll have to settle for life imprisonment. Take her away.

I suppose I agree with everything in Chris’ section three:  'Fooling all the People all the Time?'. They don’t fool all the people.  We know that all the main political parties, which sadly includes the Green Party led by Labour Party stooge Caroline Lucas, are in the conspiracy.  They think that British people are as witless as sheep and that they will accept anything.  It’s not true.  British people just lack leadership.  It’s a pity that the Green Party is unable to provide it.

Anonymous said: 'A bit of an oversimplification to say the least'.  Anonymous then goes off on one and starts talking about 'imaginary nation states' and racists.  Anonymous, please could you be more patronizing, condescending and insulting?   Your dismissive slap-down wasn’t offensive enough.

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Baffling Ballot Box Probe

Editorial Note:  IN May 2017, Northern Voice produced the piece of investigative journalism below in which we tried to shed light on the shady goings on in the Spotland and Falinge ward.  That was at a time when mysteriously a marked ballot register disappeared without adequate explanation.  Since then the voting irregularities of the new Councillor Faisal Rana has further damaged the image of Rochdale.

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In Rochdale, a lack of curiosity at the top?

Written up by Les May based on research by Carl Faulkner and Brian Bamford

THERESA May’s ostensible reason for calling a General Election is that her slender majority of 12 was an obstacle to passing the legislation needed to cope with the fallout from the UK leaving the EU.  The cynical amongst you might wonder if it was not also an opportunity to distract attention from the fact that criminal charges are being considered by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) against at least 30 individuals in the Conservative party.  Some have been MPs in the 2015 parliament and contributing to Theresa’s slim majority, some will be candidates in this election and could be re-elected.   Electoral fraud isn’t just something that happens in other countries it happens here too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud 

It’s not just the Tories who have played fast and loose with the rules on election expenditure.  In recent years Labour and the LibDems have both been fined by the Electoral Commission for breaking election expense rules.  What makes the Tory case different is that the CPS is investigating whether there is evidence that candidates and their agents may be guilty of filing false spending returns. If they are both could be charged with fraud.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/alexandra-runswick/election-expenses_b_16146174.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-election-fraud-prosecutions-cps-election-campaign-result-overturn-battle-bus-a7689801.html

This type of fraud is easy to detect once you are alerted to what is happening.   There’s always a ‘paper trail’.  In fact a year ago as part of its ‘Check a Tory’ campaign the Daily Mirror put the election expenses of Tory MPs on line and invited readers to scrutinise them.  What’s much harder to detect is when a small group, with or without the tacit agreement of local party bosses, exploit weaknesses in the system to rig the ballot.  Having a system which ‘on paper’ is foolproof, is fallible if the people who are supposed to implement it fall down on the job.

In August 2015, the government put out a press release announcing that, ‘Sir Eric Pickles, the Government’s Anti-Corruption Champion’, was to review the question of electoral fraud.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/sir-eric-pickles-to-examine-electoral-fraud

A year later it was published.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/sir-eric-pickles-publishes-report-into-tackling-electoral-fraud 

So far so good.  But as I noted above any system is only as good as the people who implement it. This is what the Electoral Commission have to say about those people:

‘Local Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and Returning Officers (ROs) manage elections, and are uniquely placed to detect and prevent electoral fraud.  They should have robust plans in place to identify any suspicious behaviour and should work with the police to investigate any potential electoral fraud.’  (my emphasis)

But what actually happens when something ‘suspicious’ does occur.   Just how easy is it to get anyone to take notice?  Things seem to have changed in Rochdale since 2011 when ex-council leader Colin Lambert was outspoken about what needed to be done.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-13192008 

Over a year ago Northern Voices was sent the extremely well documented correspondence between a candidate in the Spotland and Falinge ward at last years Rochdale Council elections, and the various bodies which are supposed to deal with questions of electoral fraud.  It runs to some 22 pages.

At that election a 'marked register' went missing.   It should have been handed to the Returning Officer at the point at which the ballot box and other official documents were delivered by the Presiding Officer at the close of poll. It was either accidentally lost or deliberately stolen.  There can be no reason why one of these alternative explanations should be favoured over the other.   If we are to take the fight against electoral fraud seriously the ‘precautionary principle’ suggests that in the absence of evidence to the contrary it should be assumed that it was stolen, the police should be informed to that effect and a full investigation launched.   It did not happen.

What is clear from this correspondence is that, in spite of Pickles bluster in The Telegraph:
'We should never be frightened to look under the rock when what is crawling underneath threatens us all. It is time to take action to take on the electoral crooks and defend Britain’s free and fair elections', when a complaint is made, no one wants to shoulder the responsibility for making sure that a proper investigation is launched.  It seems that Pickles was right about one thing, ‘the authorities are in a “state of denial” and are “turning a blind eye” to election fraud.’

Equally worrying is that the complainant, Carl Faulkner, who stood as an independent candidate, claims that he was not informed of the loss of the missing register as he should have been and that he was told ‘all candidates were informed about the missing register'.  Northern Voices made an effort to contact the other candidates to find out if and when they were told about the missing register.

Mick Coates, the Green candidate, was quite clear that he had not been officially informed that the mark register was missing.

Enquires with the Lib-Dems suggested that this was also the case with their candidate Matthew Allen, and Ian Duckworth, Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party, was unable to confirm that their candidate, Steven Scholes, had been informed either.

Wendy Cox the Labour candidate did not answer the question directly but said:  
'Thank you for your email. I have passed this to the electoral officer.'  

Quite why she felt she had to ask the electoral officer whether she had been informed, is unclear at this point.  A week later she was asked if there had been any response and replied suggesting that NV should contact the electoral officer directly.  On the 10th April the joint editor of NV wrote to the RMBC Chief Executive, Steve Rumbelow for clarification.

(His reply to the NV joint editor, Brian Bamford, is printed below together with the response of the original complainant, Carl Faulkner.  Copies of the full correspondence between the complainant and the various bodies which are supposed to deal with questions of electoral fraud can be made available by e-mail from Northern Voices.  It shows clearly that it was the complainant who initiated the contact with the Cabinet Office, Electoral Commission and Police not RMBC.)

The possibility that the register was in fact stolen has been excluded from consideration a priori, even though at the time an exhaustive and unsuccessful search was made at the polling station, and even of people’s cars.   The consequence of deciding that a register was ‘definitely lost’ not ‘possibly stolen’ is that there is a convenient ‘fall guy’ in the form of whoever was in charge of that polling station. They are deemed to have ‘lost’ it and their reputation must suffer as a consequence.

In all this the one thing that is very clear is that whoever told the complainant that ‘all candidates were informed about the missing register' was telling a porky pie. And these are the people we have to trust when it comes to combating electoral fraud.  Robust plans to identify potential electoral fraud?   I think not.

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Dear Mr Bamford
Thank you for your recent enquiry.  Please accept my apologies for the delay in response.
To clarify, the marked register is the copy of the electoral register used in polling stations. It serves as the record of who has voted in the election, and it is kept for a year after the election. The marked register does not indicate who electors voted for, nor does it contain ballot paper numbers. 

Legislation provides that a variety of parties are eligible to access copies of the marked register after an election. Anyone can inspect the marked register, but only certain people can purchase a copy. 

This includes individual candidates and political party representatives.  Usually, copies are requested by and provided to party representatives who would then disseminate the information to their colleagues, including candidates. 

All those who requested copies of the marked registers were informed that a register had not been returned following the close of poll and the steps that had been taken in an attempt to locate it, both immediately after the close of poll and in the days following the election. 

In addition, the Council has been in contact with the Cabinet Office, Electoral Commission and Police on the matter who were satisfied with the steps that had been taken and the measures put in place to prevent any future issues of a similar nature. 

Yours Sincerely
Steve Rumbelow

And here are Mr Faulkner’s observations:
1) Without him actually stating it, it is clear that people were only going to be informed if and when a copy of the register was requested. That is not the same as informing all candidates as a matter of course. It reiterates my position that there was a concerted attempt to conceal the incident by keeping quiet about it.

2) I feel he is attempting to downplay the importance of the marked register, by portraying it as nothing more than a post-election tool for political parties /candidates / interested persons.  This is not the case - it’s primary purpose is as an anti-fraud document - but one which can be utilised by political parties etc.

3) All contact with the police, Cabinet Office and Electoral Commission was initiated by me. They contacted RMBC - not the other way round as his response could be taken to mean.

4) What are the ‘steps’ put in place that did not exist before? The issue is not about how, who, why or exactly when the register went missing but that no candidates nor the police were informed at the time or during the following 21 days.

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Squaring the Brexit Circle: Whither Corbyn?

by Les May

THERE is a saying that ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there’.   With less than eleven weeks before we are scheduled to leave the European Union (EU) I don’t think that any of the major players, the European Research Group (ERG), Theresa May, those campaigning for a second referendum, the MP(s) trying to rescind the 29 March date or the Labour party, have any clear idea where they want to end up or how they are going to get there.  Having a wish list isn’t the same as knowing how you are going to achieve it.

For the people who take the same line as the ERG leaving the EU is an end in itself.  As if by magic the problem of the Irish border will vanish.  The transition to conducting trade with other countries under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules will be seamless.  Bi-lateral trade deals with other countries will follow as surely as night follows day. We take a tough stance with the EU and the other 27 countries will be begging us to trade with them.  All these things may indeed come to pass, but I would like to see the plan of how they are to be brought about. Until I do I’ll accept the conclusion reached by Tony Blair, Nick Clegg and Michael Heseltine that for those politicians who think that leaving the EU is an end in itself it ‘would provide the pretext they have always wanted for their programme of extensive labour market deregulation and corporation tax cuts.’

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/17/we-need-another-eu-referendum-tony-blair-nick-clegg-michael-heseltine

For two and a half years Theresa May has parroted her mantra ‘Brexit means Brexit’. At no time has she given any sign that she was willing to listen to anyone who had concerns about where we would end up following our leaving the EU. She’s got deal, but it’s really a fudge so that she can say she ‘delivered Brexit’.  I don’t think she has any clear idea of where the UK will be in two years time or a plan for getting there.   The Irish border problem is not simply going to vanish.  With a few days to go before the crucial vote in Parliament we hear that she is scurrying round trying to get union leaders to pressure Labour MPs to vote for her deal.  And what has she to offer in return?  A reversal of the traditional Tory policy of ‘union bashing? I think not.

The individuals who seem to have thought least about where they want to end up are those calling for a second referendum.  I have already written that I believe such a move would undermine faith in parliamentary democracy. Parliament voted for the referendum in June 2016 with the result to be decided by a simple majority.  This produced a vote in favour of waving the EU, but not an overwhelming one.   For parliament to use this as a pretext for calling a second referendum with perhaps different rules seems to me improper. I voted to remain in the EU, but I would struggle to square my conscience with even casting a vote in a second referendum.

But just in case I find a way to salve my conscience, I keep reminding myself that I can see absolutely no evidence that the result would be any different than last time. Although there’s a lot of noise coming from politicians it does not seem to figure in everyday conversations. In the absence of evidence either way it’s an evens bet that the result will be the same. Then what? We are back at square one, perhaps with a bolstered and empowered ERG, and facing even more pressure for dropping out of the EU immediately with the consequences noted above. That’s an awful lot to risk on another throw of the dice.

The former Attorney General Dominic Grieve is the MP behind the idea that the 29 March date should be struck from previous legislation if Theresa May’s ‘deal’ fails to be passed by MPs.  As it stands this idea has a lot of merit.  There isn’t time to pass all the legislation which must be passed before we can leave the EU. It would also give time to produce a clear plan of where we want to get to in relations with the EU and the rest of the world, and how to get there.  Where I disagree with Grieve is his call for a second referendum which I think has no merit whatsoever.

Labour’s position on the EU is clearer than many people give credit.  In a long debate on the impact on security of leaving the EU the shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott said that in the 2016 referendum Labour campaigned on ‘remain and reform’ and in the 2017 election on honouring the result of the referendum whilst being ‘committed to a jobs-first Brexit that will not harm our economy’. But of course that is a wish list, not a roadmap of how it is to be achieved.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2019-01-11/debates/DBEB14BC-9AE7-4965-9DC9-3C5B273B8CE7/EuropeanUnion%28Withdrawal%29Act#contribution-C160BB51-9221-403E-B323-7178361A3D0B

If as is anticipated Theresa May fails to get a majority for her ‘deal’ and Labour tables a vote of ‘No Confidence’ which fails immediately or in the later vote to be held within 14 days, then if Labour really is committed to ‘jobs-first Brexit that will not harm our economy’ it is going to have to come up with concrete proposals about how it is going to get to that desirable situation.  Simply saying it will renegotiate the present deal is to repeat Theresa May’s mistake of not involving MPs representing the wide spectrum of views about the EU which exists in the present Parliament.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2011/14/section/2/enacted

Views on the EU, and on leaving it, are so polarised that no way forward is going to satisfy everyone.  There is no perfect solution which will honour the referendum vote, get us out of the Common Fisheries Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy, give us the benefits of the single market, block immigration from the EU, cease payments to the EU and resolve the issue of the Irish border, all in one neat package.  It is time for MPs to tell the public that this is the case and that some compromises will have to be made. I’d like to think that Corbyn is the man to do this, but I’m not holding my breath.

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Is the Corbyn Project Finished?

by Les May

THE day after Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour party on 12 September 2015 the BBC showed its filmed production of J. B. Priestley’s 1945 play An Inspector Calls which has been seen by some people as a call to British society to take more responsibility for working-class people. Certainly this is how I read the play. It is calling for a shift in attitude, but it’s not a prescription for how it can be achieved.

I grew up in the 1950s, a time when that shift in attitude had to a significant degree been achieved. My dad was in hospital and we lived on National Assistance introduced by the Atlee government in 1949. Unlike today my mum was not made to feel like a scrounger. Many of the scribblers who write the opinion pieces in our newspapers are too young to remember that world. They are ‘Thatcher’s Children’ and since her election in 1979 the centroid of politics has shifted to the Right, so they view any move away from that centroid as Left wing extremism and swallow the myth that the Social Democracy which underpinned those years was a failure. It did not fail. It was ruthlessly destroyed by Thatcher and her followers in pursuit of their own interests.

Whilst older people like me have been attracted to ‘The Corbyn Project’ because they want to see the more caring world I experienced as a child restored, other, younger people have been attracted by what they see as his willingness to break with the Blairite legacy they grew up with and promote an alternative vision of society. Labour’s ranks have been swelled by younger people joining the party and older people rejoining it. These are the people who re-elected him when, in 2016, the win in the EU referendum by the Leave campaign led to the spurious claim that he was to blame for not campaigning hard enough.

In fact he was much more successful in persuading Labour voters of the virtue of staying in the EU (60% voted Remain) than Cameron was in persuading Tory voters (60% voted Leave).

I can see much the same scenario building as we approach 29 March 2019. This is what Andrew Rawnsley had to say in The Observer last Sunday;

‘The Labour leader is not making any effort to prevent Brexit because he doesn’t want to prevent Brexit. The conclusion for Labour supporters ought to be clear. If they want another referendum, they will have to rebel against him.’

It’s not difficult to spot the non sequitur here. There is absolutely no guarantee that the result of a second referendum would be different from the first. Rawnsley wants Labour supporters who don’t want to leave the EU, and I’m one of them, to think it would. From there it’s only a short step to saying, ‘It’s Corbyn’s fault we left the EU because he did not call for a second referendum’ if we do in fact leave.

Corbyn’s unwillingness, so far at least, to call for a second referendum is a principled stance. As I have written before when I voted to Remain in the EU I assumed that result would be honoured. But I doubt that the people in the Labour party who have tried to get rid of him once will see it that way.

I think Corbyn’s unwillingness to commit Labour prematurely to a definite policy with regard to leaving the EU has been shrewd because it makes it difficult for Labour’s enemies to attack it. At some time it will have to be clarified. Or will it?

As things stand there does not look like a majority of MPs in the House of Commons who will vote to leave. If there isn’t then perhaps Theresa May will feel she has to call a second Referendum. That would let Corbyn off the hook, May would get all the flak and Jeremy would be seen as the man who respected the voters wishes. That certainly would not do him any harm in an election.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Inspector_Calls

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02z80kq